


This Must Be the Place

by Mosca



Series: Tales from Scheherezade [1]
Category: Figure Skating RPF, Firefly
Genre: Alternate Universe - Firefly Verse, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/F, IN SPACE!, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 19:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4847297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosca/pseuds/Mosca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mariah can't wait to get off this gou shi de moon and explore the 'Verse with the crew of the Scheherezade. Some of them are friendly, but all of them are hiding something.</p>
<p>Or, the one with figure skaters in the Firefly 'Verse. This works perfectly well as Firefly fic with original characters, too, if that's what you're into.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Must Be the Place

**Author's Note:**

> Infinite thanks to Footnoterphone for getting me to write this and then beta reading!
> 
> This is intended as the first episode in a "season" of stories. They'll all stand alone somewhat, but I have an arc planned. This story is not violent or sexually explicit, but future installments probably will be.
> 
> The title is from a Talking Heads song. My Firefly fact-checking comes from [Firefly: Objects in Space,](http://www.firefly-objectsinspace.com/index.html) and Chinese phrases come from there and Google Translate.
> 
> This story contains likable protagonists who engage in illegal activity, skepticism toward organized religion, and sexy tomatoes.

When she stepped on board the _Scheherezade_ , Mariah knew for sure that Jason had out-conned her. _A chance to travel the ‘Verse and meet all kinds of new people she could take for a ride,_ Jason had said, but what Mariah saw was a smugglers’ container ship where Jason had his own shuttle and Mariah got a room among the crew. She’d be a tenant, Jason told her, with no obligation to anyone but herself as long as she paid rent, but then he went on about how happy all the other tenants were to pitch in with chores and maintenance. For Mariah, freedom and being part of a team didn’t go together, never had, but it looked like she’d have to learn to mix them.

She reminded herself to look on the bright side. A life in the Black meant no more nights in jail for solicitation when she wasn’t even picking pockets. No more loitering in the saloons by the docks waiting for out-of-towners to get drunk and vulnerable, only to duck away with empty hands when they turned aggressive. No more Shepherds harassing her with threats of salvation.

Besides, the room was the largest and cleanest she’d had to herself. And she liked Jason, the only person ever to beat her at her own game. He put the art in “con artist,” stringing lies like beads until his marks believed he’d given them something precious by taking their money. When he’d pitched her a partnership, he’d reasonably pointed out that all the best jobs went off smoother with an accomplice. 

Mariah had scarcely set down her things before a tiny woman with a towering presence stormed to the door of her new room, and Jason told Mariah to wait in the hall while he smoothed this over. Mariah could not have avoided eavesdropping, so she listened extra hard. No sense wasting a chance to spy.

“We’re full up, Jason,” the woman said, her voice shockingly high and sweet. “You in the shuttle, Alex and Maia in the suite, Josh in the single.”

“Josh hasn’t slept anywhere but my shuttle in months,” Jason said. “And you know him, too good-natured to raise a fuss, but he’s paying for accommodations he don’t use.”

“Quit playing me,” the woman said. “I’m not one of your marks.”

“All I’m doing is filling a vacancy. You need rent money, I need a partner, Josh needs to spend his tips on guitar strings and not on a glorified storage room. Everyone wins.” Jason had an amazing talent for destroying people with logic. Since that wasn’t Mariah’s own strength, she admired it all the more.

Mariah couldn’t see the woman’s expression during the ensuing silence, but she could picture it. Pursed lips, hands on hips, staring up at Jason like she was staring him down. “So why should I rent to some dust-farm floozy you scooped up from a dockside dive bar?”

“This ‘dust-farm floozy’ is the sharpest hustler I’ve ever met,” Jason said, and Mariah beamed. “She had _me_ fooled for a hot minute. And don’t you dare tell me you’re too high and mighty to take on another criminal. Not one person on this spaceship makes an honest living.”

“Breaking the law isn’t the same as dishonesty,” the woman said. “One professional liar on this boat is bad enough.”

“And yet I always pay my rent on time.”

“Hm,” the woman said. “It _would_ save me the trouble of hounding Josh when he runs late.”

“He says I’m cute when I nag,” Jason said proudly.

“So where is this girl?” the woman said. “If I’m going to live with her, I’d best get to know her.”

Jason led the woman out the door, and Mariah had just enough time to sit on the floor and scoot down the hall so she wouldn’t startle them. When they appeared, she bounced back to her feet and held out her hand. “Mariah Bell, at your service, Ma’am.” Gorram it, she sounded too eager, as usual.

“How old are you?” The woman narrowed her eyes.

“Eighteen, Ma’am.”

“You got papers to prove that?”

“I got papers that prove all kinds of things,” Mariah said.

Jason guffawed, and the woman smiled warmly. “I’m Captain Meryl Davis,” she said. “Welcome to _Scheherezade._ ”

“Thank you,” Mariah said, a little over-gracious.

“Why don’t you get yourself settled?” Captain Davis said. She seemed more relaxed in her friendliness than when taking charge. “I’ll get one of the Shibs to give you the tour.”

“I can give her the tour,” Jason chirped. 

“I know you _can,_ ” Captain Davis said, “but I’m sure you have other things to do.” 

Jason sighed, but it was clear that he was only allowed to stay aboard _Scheherezade_ because he deferred to her authority once in a while. He winked at Mariah and swished down the hall. Captain Davis lingered another moment before following him, leaving Mariah alone to wonder what kind of guai dan de pirate slang a “Shib” was.

It didn’t take long for the Shib to come in, a girl a few years older than Mariah with long black hair and a sophistication that Mariah had only seen in video dramas bootlegged from the Core. But the girl greeted Mariah with a friendly smile. “I’m Maia. The Captain asked me to give you a tour.”

_Scheherezade_ was larger than it looked, but most of its space was taken up by cargo bays and the enormous mechanical systems that powered it. Much of the rest was off-limits to Mariah, like the cockpit and the Cortex server room. Pretty much all Mariah got to see were the kitchen and dining area, a small lounge, the infirmary, and the hallway that led to the crew bunks. “I wish there were more to show you,” Maia said. “It’s nice to feel useful.” Mariah couldn’t tell if Maia was bitter about that, or just nostalgic.

“You don’t often?” Mariah had learned on the job that vague questions were the fastest path to a stranger’s whole life story.

“Well, we’re not crew, my brother and I,” Maia said. “We make videos, the kind you post on the Cortex for anyone who wants them. It was a hobby, although with ads and donations, we started earning a pretty good living.” Maia looked at her hands as if remembering something she could no longer hold in them. “Alex was a medical student on Osiris, and I was studying media communications at Jisha-Anwei. And then we said some things we shouldn’t have, including _maybe_ leaking some confidential government correspondence. There’s warrants out for our arrests now.” She paused, waiting for Mariah to react, but Mariah just nodded. She didn’t want to push the story in any one direction. Maia went on, “Living in the Black means we still get our signal out, and we’re on to the next planet before the Feds can catch up. Our fans pay our expenses, so I’m not afraid of starving, but - I’m twenty-one years old, and I had plans for my life.”

“But you get to do what you love, don’t you?” Mariah said.

“Yeah, and I have my brother. It could be much worse. It’s just a strange existence.”

“Well, it looks like I’m joining you,” Mariah said. “What do you think of that?”

“I think I trust you about as far as I can kick you.” Maia grinned at Mariah’s shock. “First thing the Captain told me was what you are and how you got here. We’ll share our meals with you, put your name on the chore board, deal you in on a tallcard game. But we won’t ever trust you.”

Mariah nodded. She could have turned on the waterworks, but Maia would have seen them for the crocodile tears they were. “Trusting me doesn’t go well for people. Jason realizes that. He _likes_ me, but that’s another thing altogether.”

“Just as long as we’re clear,” Maia said, leaving Mariah alone to sort her meager belongings. It made her aspire to owning things, to making a home.

Once she’d put her things away, though, Mariah saw no reason to sit alone in her room. She sought out Jason at first, trying to remember the way to the shuttle. The spaceship that had seemed so small and cute on the tour suddenly felt vast. Mariah stopped to get her bearings and heard strains of music echoing up from the cargo bay. A man with a guitar sat in a canvas folding chair, strumming a snatch of melody. Mariah sat on the catwalk that crossed the cargo bay to Jason’s shuttle, her legs dangling between the gaps in the railing, to listen. At first, she couldn’t hear his mistakes, but as he repeated the line he was practicing, Mariah could tell where he’d cleaned up the errors. It was like watching him untie an intricate knot. Finally, he sat back for a moment, stretching out his hands. Mariah applauded.

The musician looked up. “Oh!” he said. “You must be the new tenant Jason found. Almost burned my ears off, telling me how wonderful you are, and he’s not the kind to compliment folks in private, no matter how much he flatters them to their faces, so -” He coughed and cleared his throat. By mentioning Jason, he’d identified himself. He had a singer’s clear, soft voice, honed to bounce off walls and ring through the air like cathedral bells. On top of that, he was uncommonly handsome, with a strong jaw and deep-set soulful eyes, like a fairy-tale prince. Between his looks and his voice, Mariah didn’t wonder that he made a living as a busker. If people encountered something lovely and precious that they thought could be theirs, even for a moment, the coins fell right out of their pockets.

“So listening to you play for free is one of the perks of buying a ride on this boat?” Mariah said, climbing down from the catwalk. “Or do you still expect tips?”

“No, you don’t have to tip,” Josh said, then giggled at his own earnestness. “I mean, you could. I’d take it.”

“Better to remember the money I’m saving you in rent and call it a lifetime subscription?” Mariah said.

He seemed like the kind of person who couldn’t smile and look you in the eye at the same time. “Fair enough,” he said.

“Well, since I’ve paid up for a lifetime, why don’t you play me another?” 

Josh ran his fingers over his guitar strings in a slow arpeggio, like he was trying to think of a reason to turn her down. “Any requests?”

“Play something that reminds you of Jason,” Mariah said. “Something that’ll show me what makes him tick.”

“Thought you were business partners.”

“Not so I can screw him over,” Mariah said. “So I can watch his back.”

Josh smiled down into his guitar again. He strummed out a slow, happy waltz, a love song that revealed nothing about Jason but plenty about Josh: he was wise to manipulation games. And yet he seemed to like her.

The rattle of footsteps across the catwalk interrupted Josh’s song. The man skipping down the stairs wore his shirtsleeves rolled up to display bright and intricate tattoos that covered both his arms to the wrists. Swirls of color licked up from his collar to his neck as well. He said, “Captain sent me down here to meet the new girl.” He shook Mariah’s hand and kissed both her cheeks.

“This is Jeremy,” Josh said. “He keeps the spaceship from falling out of the sky.”

“Well, most of the time,” Jeremy said. A deep scar across his lip turned the left side of his smile downward. “Maria, she said your name was?”

“Mariah,” she corrected.

“Well, you look like a right ray of sunshine,” Jeremy said. “Not that I’d expect different from Jason. Ain’t no power in the ‘Verse can keep that fa kuang de hun dan from being cheerful. I bet he’s even cheerful when him and Josh fight.”

Josh laughed softly, once again giving nothing away.

“What are you doing back so early, anyhow?” Jeremy said to Josh.

“Thinking of ways to harm you for calling Jason a fa kuang de hun dan,” Josh said, almost getting to the end of the sentence straight-faced. “No, I was getting trouble from a local Shepherd and his flock. They don’t look kindly on murder ballads or love songs to boys. Never had trouble with the Bible-bangers on Jiangyin before, not sure what brought ‘em out this time.”

“Probably just happened by and called their friends over,” Jeremy said. “Always makes me wonder if they skipped the verses about not judging your neighbor.” It sounded like it wasn’t the first time they’d had this kind of conversation, like it was a problem that loomed over their shoulders all too often.

Josh shrugged. “I brought in a pretty fine haul before they shut me down, so I ain’t thinking too deeply on it.”

Mariah knew her home moon better than they did, so she pitched her perspective in. “Town’s full of churches and temples and mosques. Dozens of little congregations battling for the same handful of true believers. Most of ‘em keep to themselves, and some are real do-gooders, tend to the poor and all that. But a few like to make a show out of bringing a sinner to salvation.” Mariah stuck her hands in her pockets and smiled. “Every so often, I’d get down on my knees and cry and say I saw the light, see how much charity I could get out of ‘em before they caught on.” Not wanting to offend, she added, “I got no quarrel with faith. Got some of my own - too big a ‘Verse to live without it. But around here, there’s a lot of religion applied to others and not much on folks themselves.”

“Sounds like you’ve had a few run-ins,” Josh said.

“Enough that I won’t be homesick for it,” Mariah said.

The giant cargo door roared to life, rising to reveal the rain-soaked dockyard and three crew members, all yellow-haired and leather-clad, although the two girls showed enough roots to prove their blonde came from a bottle. The man between them ran a hand through his mop of curls before launching into orders. “Tanith, you know the destination, set up a flight plan. Jer, get those engines ready for liftoff - no, wait, we bought fuel cells, let me get ‘em on the antigrav so you can take them up. Josh, we went overboard at the farmers’ stalls, glad you’re back early so you can sort through those crates and turn some of it into dinner. Gracie, go fetch Alex, and the two of you start unloading cargo. And you - who’re you?”

“Mariah. I’m your new tenant.”

“Ain’t got room for a new tenant,” the man said.

“Jason hired me to work with him,” she explained, confident already in how the ship’s small society fit together. “I’m taking Josh’s room so Josh can move in with Jason and not lose you rent money.”

“Sounds like you’ve got this well figured out. Meryl approved this scheme?”

“She took some convincing,” Mariah said.

“Well, then, I got no choice but to welcome you aboard.” He held out his hand. “Charlie White. I co-own this fine boat.”

“With Captain Davis?”

“Even let her call herself the captain,” he said.

“She seems like a sensible woman,” Mariah said. “Good-hearted.”

“You already got a read on her, don’t you?” Charlie said.

“It’s what I do.”

“I reckon it is.” His smile said _welcome home,_ but his eyes said _watch your back._ “But you don’t do it here. No picking pockets, no rigging up little gambling games where the house always wins, no testing out your new material on unsuspecting shipmates. In no way will you take advantage of my crew. Jason, I got reason to trust, but you - I smell one whiff of funny business, and we drop you on the next moon. Dong ma?”

“If it means getting off this gou shi de yue, I’ll do whatever you need,” Mariah said.

“Here’s what I need you to do. Take a good look out that cargo door, Mariah,” Charlie said. “I promise you, whatever you think of this gou shi de yue now, you’ll miss it once we lift off.”

“No doubt,” she said.

“And once you’ve filled your eyes with memories, go carry those sacks of food up to the kitchen. I’m sure Josh won’t mind the help.”

Obediently, Mariah stood watching the rain for a minute or two before piling five burlap bags onto an anti-grav cart. The cart had a handle like a child’s red wagon but floated up the catwalk like a friendly ghost. Even with the little cart, it took three trips to bring everything up to the kitchen. At the end of Mariah’s third journey, Meryl stood with her hands on her hips, saying, “Did those sha gua spend our entire take on food?”

“Pretty sure they bought some fuel cells, too,” Josh said.

“Food’s good for morale,” Jason piped up. He’d been put to work peeling potatoes. “Especially since the rest of you didn’t have the foresight to hide chocolate and oranges under the bed.”

“The rest of us can’t _afford_ chocolate and oranges,” Josh said.

“And none of us need a cockroach problem,” Meryl added.

“Those cockroaches are imaginary,” Jason said as Josh bent over him to kiss his head. When they touched, Mariah saw the spark between them, a fierce protectiveness wrapped up in their unassuming outward natures. 

Meryl hovered over Mariah and Josh while they sorted through the food. The crew had chosen practically: lots of beans and root vegetables, nothing as fancy as chocolate or oranges. Meryl chuckled as Josh set aside crates of tomatoes and summer squash. “Looks like the crew forgot how this place steams up when we can vegetables.”

“It keeps everyone occupied when we’re halfway between nowhere and nowhere,” Jason said. “Where’re we headed, anyway? Mariah and I have some planning to do.”

“Persephone,” Meryl said. “Edge of the Core. Couple days’ journey, so you’ll have plenty of time for scheming while the rest of us can tomatoes.”

As if on cue, one of the bottle blondes from the cargo bay stomped into the kitchen, plucked a tomato from the crate, cut out the stem end with a pocket knife, and ate it whole, like an apple. She wore a white button-down shirt, too tight for her curves and not by accident. Mariah tried not to stare hard enough for her to notice, but as the girl polished off the last of her tomato, she cast her eyes on Mariah with a mean little smirk.

“Not sure that belongs to you,” Meryl said.

“I gave up half my cut to bring some decent food on this boat,” the blonde said. “Reckon I’m entitled to one gorram tomato.”

“Mariah, meet Gracie,” Jason said. “I wish I could say this was one of her bad days.”

“What’s your job here?” Mariah said.

“Scaring people,” Josh blurted while Gracie dabbed tomato juice from her chin with a red embroidered handkerchief she’d pulled out of her bra. Somehow, her cherry-red lipstick remained immaculate.

“Most captains would hire a big, dumb brute to do Gracie’s work,” Meryl said proudly. “But the big fellows look at Gracie and piss themselves, ‘cause they know if Charlie and I trust her to do their job, she must draw quicker than a run hua hai tun.”

Gracie’s smile sent chills down Mariah’s spine. She polished her knife with her hanky in slow strokes. “Hey, new girl,” she said, cupping a tomato in her hand like a woman’s breast. “Want one?”

Mariah turned up one corner of her mouth, not quite meeting Gracie’s eye. “Can I borrow your knife?”

Gracie stabbed the tomato clean through. It bubbled with juice as Gracie handed it to Mariah. Calmly, Mariah quartered the tomato, then returned the knife before biting into the fruit’s warm flesh. There might as well have been no one else in the room.

Jason snapped Mariah out of it with a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s go out to the pillow room for a minute.” His voice carried a perky lilt, like joining him would have been her decision, but she sensed there was nothing optional about this invitation. Mariah followed him into the lounge that Maia had whisked her through before. She hadn’t noticed then that the room had no furniture; instead, a few steps led down into a shallow pit lined with fluffy rugs and soft, mismatched cushions. Most likely, the room had held some other, practical use before the crew had filled it up with pillows.

“Take care around Gracie,” Jason said. Don’t get yourself too involved.”

“I was just flirting,” Mariah said. 

“There’s no such thing as ‘just flirting.’ Not for people like us.”

“Not for you, maybe,” Mariah said. “But being a girl in our line of work is different. You can’t avoid it. No better way to draw some marks in than to make ‘em think they have a shot.”

“Play things that way with Gracie, and you might wake up dead,” Jason said.

“I’ll keep my distance if you think it’s best,” Mariah said. “But I reckon it’s better to pull ‘em all in close as I can. Everyone on this boat trusts you - say they got reasons, won’t tell me why. I ain’t got the same insurance. For most of ‘em, it’ll be enough if I pitch into the chores and stay agreeable. But Gracie’s a pretty girl with an ego who ain’t got nobody smiling at her. Time’s likely to come when I need her to have my back.” 

Jason pressed his lips together. Mariah hoped that in his mind, he was turning the game board around to see it from her side. “She’s taken a shine to you. She ain’t like that with the rest of the crew. You might be on to something, after all.”

“Well, if I got your blessing,” Mariah finished with a smile, hoping they were thick enough already that she could joke around with him.

“You got my respect, and that’s worth more.” He held out his arms for a hug, and she leaned into it. After he let go, he motioned for her to join him in the pile of cushions. As she looked closer, she saw the pillows were hand-stuffed and quilted with scrap fabric. It must have been another way for the crew to keep themselves busy on long journeys.

“Now,” Jason said. “We’ll land on Persephone in two or three days. There’s a mark I’ve had my eye on for a while now, who might be more receptive to you in front and me in the shadows.” He shook out a sheet of clickpaper he’d been keeping folded in his back pocket all along, and it flickered to life with the floorplan of an estate. While Mariah had been listening to music and hauling beans, Jason had been outlining their next score.

Before they could get down to the particulars, someone poked their face in the doorway. At first, Mariah thought it was Maia, but the voice that came out was too deep. Alex was his sister’s spitting image. “The Captain says if you don’t get back in there, she’s going to make _me_ peel potatoes.”

“Sounds like a good deal on my end,” Jason said, turning up the charm. If Alex was trying to start conflict, Jason wasn’t giving him a lick of room for it. “We got work to do. We’re only a couple days out from Persephone, and Mariah and I can score big there if we set ourselves up right.”

Maia’s brother’s lip turned up in an involuntary show of disdain. “I admire your work ethic,” he said brightly - a well-selected scrap of truth. Like his sister, he had some sharp edges beneath his cheery veneer. They must have lost plenty, uprooted from the Core to defend what they believed in. 

Mariah had convictions of her own. She hoped she could get the Shibs to see that. She’d secured Jason’s faith in her, though, and that was enough for a start. He couldn’t wait to share this con with her, to teach her the tools of his trade - and despite her self-confidence, she had to admit he knew more than she ever could have picked up running scams on Jiangyin. They pored over the floorplan together, searching for flaws they could exploit, giddy with the promise of grander adventures than she’d conceived of living to see.


End file.
